The present invention relates to a digital print method of obtaining prints of desired sizes regardless of the presence or absence of trimming by photoelectrically reading images of various sizes recorded on various types and sizes of film originals, subjecting the images to digital signal processing, trimming the images if necessary, and exposing a light-sensitive material using a light source such as a laser beam or the like.
Images recorded on photographic film originals (hereinafter, referred to as film originals or simply as films) such as negative films, reversal films and the like are conventionally printed onto light-sensitive materials such as photographic papers and the like by so-called direct exposure, that is, a method in which an image recorded on a film original is projected onto the light-sensitive material for area exposure.
In contrast, there have been recently proposed digital photoprint systems which make use of digital exposure. The apparatus photoelectrically reads image information recorded on a film, converts the thus read image into a digital signal and thereafter applies various steps of image processing to the digital signal to thereby provide recording digital image information. If these records the image (latent image) on a light-sensitive material by scan exposing it with recording light which is modulated in accordance with the image information, and produces a print through development. Digital photoprinters for embodying the above digital photoprint systems are under development.
The digital photoprint system can freely perform editing and layout jobs for print images such as composition of a plurality of images to a composite image, division of a single image into segments, editing of characters and images and the like and various types of image processing such as color/density adjustments, magnification adjustments, edge enhancement and the like and output finished prints which are freely subjected to editing and image processing in accordance with a specific use. Although conventional print systems employing the direct exposure cannot reproduce all the image density information recorded on a film and the like in such aspects as density resolution, space resolution, color/density reproducibility and the like, the digital photoprinter can output a print in which the image density information recorded on the film is almost perfectly reproduced.
Further, since the digital photoprint system can record (store) the image information of the images recorded on respective films and image processing conditions to the image information to a memory device provided with the system and an external memory device such as a floppy disc and the like, there is an advantage that extra printing and other jobs can be accomplished without any films that serve as originals. What is more, extra printing and other jobs can be performed in a rapid and efficient manner because processing conditions need not be set again.
Essentially, the digital photoprint system and the digital photoprinter under consideration are composed of an image input device for photoelectrically reading the image recorded on an original such as a film or the like through an image sensor or the like, a display device for displaying the thus read image, an image processing device for effecting image processing operations on the thus read image and determining exposing conditions for recording the image and an image recording device for obtaining a print to be subjected to a development process by scan exposing a light-sensitive material in accordance with the determined exposing conditions. The applicant invented various devices and methods for realizing such a digital photoprint system and proposed them in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication Nos. 6-217091, 6-233052 and 6-245062, together with the disclosure of an outline of the digital photoprinter.
Incidentally, in the digital photoprint systems and digital photoprinters described above and proposed until now, an original image read by an image sensor is displayed on a display such as a monitor or the like. However, since there are various processes from the time the image born by a film original is read by the image sensor to the time the image is finally made to a print by being exposed and developed, the image region displayed on the screen of the monitor does not always match the reproduced image region in the print. Such mismatch also arises likewise when trimming is effected. Further, conventional digital photoprint systems have a problem that even if they can display a finished print region on a monitor, since they do not sufficiently take an image deficit that is, so-called "vignetting" caused in various processes into consideration, it cannot be said that the finishing region displayed on the monitor perfectly matches a print image region.
In addition to the problem of the mismatch, there are also problems that the periphery of an image born by the film original lies off the effective pixel region of an image sensor and a necessary peripheral portion of the image is lacking from a print. Further, since a projected image is smaller than the effective pixel region of the image sensor, an image signal having a sufficient number of input pixels cannot be obtained and a number of output pixels is increased by great enlargement effected by image processing. Thus, the image reproduced on a print is liable to appear out-of-focus and the degree of fineness of the quality of the print is deteriorated depending upon a method of projecting the film original to the image sensor. That is, depending upon, for example, how an optical magnification (optical enlargement/reduction) is set to determine a size of the projected image. This is because that film originals include various types and sizes such as, for example, the negative film, the reversal film and the like, a 135 size, a 240 size and the like, and even a film of the same size includes recorded images having various sizes such as, for example, a full size (F), a high-vision size (H), a panorama size (P) and the like. There arises another problem that if an optical magnification is fixed when an image born by the film original is trimmed, since the image is enlarged by image processing, there is a noticeable tendency that the image reproduced on a print is made to an out-of-focus state and the quality of the image is deteriorated. There is still another problem that the aforesaid various problems are more easily caused and difficult to be adjusted when images recorded on the same film original include a plurality of sizes in addition to that the film original to be handled has various types and sizes and when a digital photoprint system can arbitrarily set a plurality of finished print sizes regardless of the type and size of the film original and the size of a recorded image. Further, when the optical magnification is changed in accordance with the size of an image to be read in the above digital photoprint system to properly read the image born by the film original as much as possible, a further problem arises in that since images having different recorded sizes exist even in the film of the same size, the optical magnification and a focus must be adjusted each time the size of the recorded image to be processed changes even in the same film and productivity cannot be increased.